When we were younger, people made us feel like we weren't good enough because they felt not good enough. They made us feel that, like, you know, we should be seen and not heard or that we did something wrong. But that was all a projection of their own unprocessed trauma. Both of my parents felt like they weren't good enough, and so they micromanaged me when I was a kid. They did a lot of things really, really well, but they also did things like, don't do this. You don't like that. Don't make this decision. Watch out. And so I developed this idea that I wasn't good enough. And it's not true. There's no such thing as good enough or not good enough. So my invitation for you is to notice when your mind is thinking that remember your thoughts are not your thoughts, and to step out of the good enough, not good enough game. Welcome to A Changed Mind, a journey into the topics that matter to you most. From the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth, to groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth and relationships, to open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture, and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of the future and provides the teachings, tools and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real, lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity and doom and gloom so that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside, you're in the right place. Welcome to a Changed Mind. Hey, it's David. Welcome to a Changed Mind. A sanctuary for your spirit. A place where each and every episode I remind you of the certainty of the goodness of the future. I'm your friend, your host, your guide, David Bayer. If you are in college or your late teens and twenties and you're feeling stuck in life, you are confused about what you want to do, or you're feeling a lot of pressure from a lot of different people trying to keep up with your grades, your career, or getting adjusted to life as a young adult. You're going to love this episode because in the next few minutes I'm going to make sense of all the insanity that you're feeling that is creating the anxiety and depression and pressure and give you a roadmap to navigate life that, frankly, should have been the first thing they taught you in school. And honestly, the reason they didn't is because most adults don't understand how to play the game of life. But by the end of this episode, I'm going to help you reorganize your entire perception of life, of yourself. And we're going to create a breakthrough together so that you can step out of the craziness and start living your life intentionally and powerfully. Regardless of what's going on around you, regardless of what other people tell you, you're going to have the confidence and the clarity that you're on the right path.

So let me start by saying I can only imagine what it's like for you. I can definitely relate. But when I was your age, like, it was 20 or 30 years ago, we didn't have the iPhone, we didn't have Instagram, we didn't have TikTok, we didn't have AI, we didn't have Fentanyl. We didn't have the level of division and sensitivity that we have today. And it was still really, really hard. I remember going from high school to college. I grew up in Orange County, California. I went to Mission Bail High School. I got accepted into Columbia University. So I went from Southern California to New York City, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. I remember my parents took me out there and they had, like, a new student orientation. They put me in my dorm room, which seems crazy looking back on it. The fact that they just put you in a room to live with someone that you don't know, who's also going through this adjustment period without giving you any coaching or guidance. And when my parents left, I cried. I sat there and cried with my head in my hands for about a half hour. I was like, what in the world? Like, I'm alone in New York City with a bunch of strangers. My roommate, within the first week, revealed to me that he was bisexual. And, you know, this was back in 1993. It was like in another century. We didn't really understand as a general population what bisexuality was. It was all very new, and I didn't know how to process it, and he didn't know how to process it. So he was acting out and displaying in a lot of different ways that I won't get into. It was a difficult thing to digest and metabolize. I was playing college basketball, so playing with a bunch of guys. Some were freshmen, but then sophomores and juniors and seniors. They didn't have any coaching on emotional intelligence or how to be respectful in their relationships. There was a lot of, like, really, really cruel teasing. And I was a sensitive guy. You know what I mean? Like, I was not a macho beer drinking fraternity guy. And so I felt really, really alone. And at the same time, it was super competitive. So I felt like I needed to get good grades. It was super competitive just getting into college. And I had this feeling like I wasn't good enough. I was never doing enough. I was behind everybody else. And there are some things that I learned as I look back. I'm going to give you about 11 distinctions or principles. I may throw in some bonus ones as we go along here that I wish I knew then that they should have taught me. And number one, and maybe most importantly, is that everyone else is as scared, if not more scared or confused than you are. Everybody's terrified. Everybody's terrified of themselves. Everybody's terrified of not being good enough. Everybody's terrified of not being able to keep up with the pack or be accepted. No matter what group you're in, Even the people who are screwing off and hanging out with people who are doing drugs or not pursuing, bettering themselves, even in their own little pack, they're terrified of everybody else in their pack, and they're terrified of every other pack. In fact, that's why they're doing drugs and screwing off. But you see it at the highest level of competition too, with the A type personalities, the A plus students. Everybody's operating from fight or flight. And so their personalities and the way that they're showing up and the things that they're doing around you that may upset you are just a projection of their personal insecurities. And no matter how good they are, no matter what they're posting on Instagram, no matter whether it's the valedictorian or the captain of the baseball team, everybody's terrified because there's a natural function inside of us to be afraid of being abandoned, to be afraid of not being good enough. And it's functioning within our nervous system as fight or flight. So it's important for you to understand that you're not alone in the way that you're feeling. My way to get out of that discomfort when I was in college was to start to use drugs and alcohol to check out of these uncomfortable feelings, worrying about whether or not I was going to make the wrong decision, always walking on eggshells, comparing myself to other people, needing to be in a relationship with a girlfriend in order to justify myself and feel secure within myself. All of those things. It's like I built up this entire life that required so much energy and so much effort to try to hold it in place. And it wasn't even really a life that I wanted. And so in all of that discomfort, which is anxiety, stress, pressure, I started using drugs and alcohol and sexual. I started drinking a lot in college, just thinking it was a thing to do. And I carried that into my 20s and 30s, until my mid-30s when I realized I was an alcoholic and got into a 12 step program. I was addicted to smoking pot. I've heard people say, well, pot's not addictive. Okay, cool, so stop for 30 days, see how that works out for you. Stop for 90 days. Because if you can't stop, you're addicted. Anything that you can't stop doing, when you decide you don't want to do it anymore, you're addicted. Pot made me feel good. Pot was the time I only time I felt really relaxed and I used pornography in the same way. That's when I started getting into pornography. You know, back then we were watching it on VHS tapes. He'd put it into the VCR and watch it. Then the Internet exploded and it became accessible everywhere. And so I got addicted to pornography and addicted to sex. And all of those things were ways that I coped with the pressure, the anxiety and the depression. So whether you're living in pressure, anxiety and depression, or whether you're living in addiction, what's happening is that we have not learned how to process all of this information that's coming through us. And the first thing you have to understand is you're not alone. Because I think that idea that there's something wrong with us or that you're the only one, I'm the only one, creates another layer of unnecessary pressure. Because what you're going to see is I go through these distinctions and it's just a pressure stack. It's a stack of misunderstandings. So the first thing to know is you're not alone and everybody feels the same way or worse than you do. No matter what they say, no matter how they're acting, and most of the way that they're acting is simply a false personality or projection that they've developed in order to avoid the discomfort of all the misunderstanding that's taking place. The second distinction is one of the primary misunderstandings is you don't need to know what you're going to do. You don't need to know what you're going to do in terms of a career. You don't need to know who you're going to be. That's not the point in your late teens and twenties. The point is for you to go experience things, try things out. Can you imagine going Shopping and experiencing shopping as I've got to find the right shirt or the right blouse or pair of pants or dress with the perfect fit. If I don't go into the store and do it perfectly, I'm going to fail and my life is going to be a failure. It'd be crazy, right? But that's the way we treat college. That's the way we treat our early career. You're just walking into a store and you're trying shit on. So try it on. I built up so much pressure thinking that I needed to be some sort of dot com millionaire in order to justify me feeling good about myself. And that drove me into misery. And I look back and it's like, God, I could have enjoyed my 20s and early 30s so much more because I didn't really figure out what I wanted to do until my late 30s. But that's the way it's supposed to work. Like, I started doing what I'm doing now when I was, Let me see, 30, 41, 42 years old. I had two homes in foreclosure. I had no money in the bank account. I had a bunch of credit card debt. And now I'm rich and I'm doing what I love and I'm helping people. But it took me till my 40s. That's the way it's supposed to work. You go out and you try a bunch of things like a buffet, and you can't get it wrong. So I just want you to know you don't need to know what you're going to do. I know plenty of people who started a very specific career path. Lawyer, doctor, something that there's a track for. And they're doing something completely different now, or they love doing what they're doing. I majored in literature and writing. Like, what are you going to do with that as a career? And so I did some internships. I kind of stumbled my way through life. I explored a bunch of different opportunities. I ended up creating my own business 20 something years, you know, later. Now I'm doing something completely different. So you don't need to know what you're going to do. Just relax. It doesn't make any sense. There's all this pressure and competition to try to go out and be the best. And actually the way that you can be the best is by not trying to be the best. Just chill. Pick some courses that you like in college, pick some careers that you think might be interesting afterwards and just roll your way through your 20s and really halfway through your 30s. It's an intelligent design of life. That's the way it's supposed to work. You go out and have experiences and you sift and sort through all the stuff and you do some things that you don't like and you meet some people that you don't like and that helps you get clear on what you do want to do. And you make some decisions that you look back on and go, you know, I probably wouldn't have made that decision now. And you don't beat yourself up, but it's how you calibrate. Does that make sense? Like I have a 2 year old kid right now and he's just trying a bunch of different stuff. When he was younger, when he was like, I don't know, 14 months old, he tried to walk and then he fell. Like that's how it works. Do I go, man, you didn't do it right? You made a mistake, you failed? No. So realize that so much of this pressure is being created by either other people or inside yourself. And the second distinction that's really important to understand is you don't need to know what you're going to go do. You don't. So just relax. Number three, your mind is the only thing that's creating pressure for you, not your reality. So one of the things that we teach in our programs and that I write about in my book is that any type feeling that we would call suffering, anxiety, depression, feeling not good enough, indecision, pressure, anger, all of those things are created by one thing and one thing only, which is your mind. If you really take a look at it. Every emotion that you experience is a result of a thought you have. And behavioral psychology teaches us this. This is how the human being operating system works. You have a thought and then you experience that thought as an emotion. And then that emotion determines your action and your action determines your results. And so if you're experiencing emotions that you don't enjoy, we got to take a look at the thinking. And 100% of the time when we look at the thinking, it's not true. It's what we call a limiting belief. So it's just important to understand that your mind is the only thing that's creating pressure for you. It's not how you're performing in sports. It's not whether or not you make the team, it's not whether or not you get the grades, it's not whether or not you get the job. It's not what Phil said at the water cooler, right? It's not what your boss said to you. That doesn't make you feel a particular way. It's the thought that you have about the experience. See, all of your suffering is separate from the experiences of your life. The only thing that's creating suffering is your own thinking. And the way the human being is designed is it's designed to move into what we would call a primal state. Like a feeling that doesn't feel good when you're thinking something that's not true. So some of the things that you're thinking is like, you need to do better. It's not true. Some of the things that you're thinking is like, I gotta figure it out. That's not true. Some of the things that you're thinking are, other people are doing it better than me. It's not true. You're doing perfectly. For you, everybody's on their own unique journey. And so your nervous system is almost like a lie detector machine. And anytime you're thinking something that's not true, you feel crappy. So just know that all of these external things are not determining how you feel. The source of your feeling and the source of your power is inside of you. Now, you're going to have a more difficult time managing your mind. If you're hyped up on a bunch of caffeine, if you're hyped up on a bunch of drugs, if you're not working out and moving your body and releasing tension in healthy ways. I recommend you have a meditation practice for 10, 20 minutes a day before you kind of get out into the craziness. You just sit quietly and you let your mind unwind. So you have to have practices to support a healthy mind. And there are certain things you can do right. Eating crappy processed foods that are not conducive to you. Having a relaxed mind. So these are things that are important to understand. You can influence the way your brain is functioning, and there's a ton of information on the Internet about how to do that. And there are practices that you can develop, but your mind is the only thing that's creating pressure for you. That's the third distinction. The fourth one is you can control your mind. Now, you can't control your thoughts. Your thoughts just occur. And this is a really important thing to be aware of. If you close your eyes right now, unless you're driving or you close your eyes after you finish listening to this episode, and you just pay attention, your thoughts are always going. It's very similar to, like, your heart is always beating, or your lungs are always breathing and your cells are Always processing, and the earth is always spinning. Your thoughts are always going. So you're always processing thoughts, old thoughts, thoughts about the future. It's what the brain does, it's a thinking device. But you are not your thoughts. And so when you realize that, and this is why a meditation practice is helpful, because as you start to see, like, wow, I'm just thinking all the time, you become the observer of your thoughts. When you're not the observer of your thoughts, you are your thoughts. You think something is going to not work out, and so you panic. And so you take panicked action.

Or someone says something that causes you to feel not good enough. And then all of a sudden you become a not good enough person. You do the behaviors and you have the emotions of someone who is believes that they're not good enough. You don't step up and ask the girl out, or you don't go to the party because you feel not good enough, or you don't take the chance and apply for the position. You become a not good enough person. But you don't have to be your thoughts. So the thoughts are always going, but you don't have to be the thought. So it's a really good practice. For about six months, when I really got into this deeper personal development work, I would wake up every morning stressed and anxious and overwhelmed, and I would write out all my thoughts. And I would use some of the simple tools that I now teach to work with those thoughts to see that they're not true. And then I'd go on with my day, because what I was doing before was carrying all those thoughts into my day. And being those thoughts make sense. You can control your mind in the sense that you don't have to become the thought. The thoughts are always going to be taking place. What's interesting is neuroscience tells us that if you don't entertain those thoughts, eventually those thoughts will fade away and new thoughts will form on sort of a natural habitual basis that reflect the action that you are taking. So as you ignore the thoughts about not being good enough and you take action as someone who is confident, believes in themselves would do, you're planting new seeds in your mind that will start to automatically produce a healthier internal dialogue. It doesn't happen overnight. But again, the point of this so far is to show you that you're in control. Other people are not in control of you, and other people are all feeling as lost and confused as you are because they don't have the information that I'm sharing with you. The next distinction Distinction number five is focus on what you want and it will unfold because that's how reality works. So there's a little book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. There are a lot of other books out there that explain this a lot better. If you want to go deeper into this, you can check out my book. It's called A Changed Mind, where I map out all of these distinctions and frameworks and give you tools to better navigate life. But the key is to focus on what you want. Because as the Buddha said, the mind is everything, what you think you become. And so thoughts are really powerful things that create your reality and whatever you focus on becomes your reality. One of my mentors once told me, what you make matter becomes matter. It's a really powerful idea, right? What you make matter in your life becomes matter. It materializes into your reality. Now I have a lot of other episodes around how this work, how thoughts become things. So I won't dive too deep into it right now. But the key is to focus on what you want. Now, are you going to experience things that you don't like? Yeah, you are. You're going to experience a roommate in college that you don't like, or somebody on your sports team, or a teacher. You're going to take some courses that you don't like. You're going to have some jobs that you don't like. You're going to have managers or coworkers that you don't like. But all of those things that you don't like, let's call it the contrast of your life. The things you don't like, they're actually gifts because they help you get clear on what you do want. If you're experiencing stress, what you want is peace. If you're experiencing someone who's not faithful in a relationship, then what you want is loyalty and commitment. If you're experiencing not having enough money, then what you want is prosperity and abundance. If you're experiencing not feeling good enough, then what you want is confidence and self esteem. And so the natural way of operating, well, this really isn't natural. Let me rephrase that. The optimal way to operate is to notice what you do want and realize that it's giving you a direction into what you do want. And then focus all of your energy on what you do want. Now by energy, what I'm saying is just focus your mind, Decide, envision, imagine what you do want based on experiencing what you don't want and it will unfold into your life again. You might be have heard of the law of Attraction or there was a movie in the early 2000s called the Secret that talks about what you focus on, finds its way to materialize into your reality. Whether it's the perfect partner, the perfect job, the perfect opportunity, a new home, money in your bank account. And so the key is to actually focus on what you do want. When you focus on what you want, you'll begin to have thoughts and ideas that when you take action upon them, will produce the results. And when you focus on what you want, because that focus is energy, that energy gets transmitted throughout all of reality and you start creating coincidences and synchronicities to materialize what you want. So let's say you're in a situation. Quick story. One of my coaching clients, their daughter is having a situation at university where the university had to get involved. It was a conflict that occurred. There was some accusation towards her that wasn't true, and she wants it to resolve. Well, the best way to resolve it is actually to ignore it. Don't make it matter. Focus on what you want. Use the experience to get clear on what it is that you do want. And whatever you want will then materialize. But again, there's a habit that we all have to just focus. And this is just part of the primal nervous system to focus on the problem. But the key is to focus on what you want. And that takes us to the sixth distinction, which is a really cool equation that we teach, which is desire plus non resistance equals desired result. And you can write this down if you want. If I was going to give you one distinction or tool or lens through which to experience life, it would be this desire, meaning whatever it is you want. You can fill in the blank there. Good grades, great job, cool friends. Desire what you want plus non resistance equals desired result. So this goes back to this idea that whatever you focus on will become your reality as long as you focus on it and you don't focus on the problem. But if you have a desire, for example, to be, have clarity around what you're meant to do in your life, but you have these thoughts which are resistant, like I'm not good enough. What if I don't have a purpose? How come I haven't figured it out by now? It creates friction in the system. If you know that your job is not to actually try to figure it out, but your job is to live in non resistance. And then it will figure itself out through you. You're playing the game efficiently. So a lot of times the plan I give to people is, you know, what you want, right? Yes. I want blank. Okay, well, you've got the desire part down. I want clarity. I want more money. I want a better relationship. I want a better job. I want to make an impact in the world. I want to contribute. I want to have friends I enjoy spending time with. I want to have more friends. I want to have a cool place to live. I want to have excess money in my bank account. I want to have great health. I don't want anxiety. So what I want is peace and calm. That's an example of the contrast. Help guiding us towards what we want. Okay, cool. You got the desire thing down. You know what you want. You could get done with this episode and write out a whole list of things that you desire. But look at the next part of the equation. Desire plus non resistance equals desired result. That thing that you want will materialize in your life if you stop making your problems and your doubts and your limiting beliefs matter. So a lot of times, the business plan I have for people who want to produce a specific outcome is, stop trying to solve it and go enjoy your life. Go for a walk, go work out. Go play a video game, Go do your hobby. Go climb a mountain, Go do jujitsu. Go have a nice cup of coffee. If that's what you like doing. Step away from the problem because your plan is called non resistance. Now, that's very counterintuitive to what they're teaching us. No, you should attack the problem. You should figure it out. You should try to solve it. No, what I'm saying is, when you stop making the problem matter, the problem will dematerialize. And right there where the problem was will be the solution, the thing you want. The desire. Distinction number seven. Your mind is going to tell you throughout all of this that you're not good enough. And that's not true. It's never been true. Now, oftentimes, when we were younger, people made us feel like we weren't good enough because they felt not good enough. And so that's how they made us feel. That like we should be seen and not heard or that we did something wrong. But that was all a projection of their own unprocessed trauma. Both of my parents felt like they weren't good enough, and so they micromanaged me when I was a kid. They did a lot of things really, really well, but they also did things like, don't do this. You don't like that. Don't make this decision. Watch out. And so I developed this idea that I wasn't good Enough. And it's not true. There's no such thing as good enough or not good enough. So my invitation for you is to notice when your mind is thinking that remember your thoughts are not your thoughts and to step out of the good enough, not good enough game. I look at the natural world oftentimes to try to understand where we as human beings get confused. So like, if you looked out your window right now and you could see some trees, tell me which one is good enough. Look at two trees and tell me which one is good enough. I don't know if you've ever had a dog before or more than one, but is one dog good enough over another dog? I asked a client of mine this once. I said, you have a child, right? Yes. How old is he? Seven years old. I said, is he good enough? He said, well, what does that even mean? Of course he's good enough. I said, is there anything we could add to him to make him more good enough? The guy said, no. If he got better grades, would he be better than good enough? Guy said, no. If he didn't get a particular job that he wanted or he made less money than somebody else, is he less good enough? No. So I just want to offer to you, and again, I have some other episodes on this that we invented this idea of good enough, not good enough. And it's causing you unnecessary pressure and leading you to be who you're not in order to be something that doesn't even exist called better or good enough. So I just want you to think about this. There is nothing that you can do or achieve or become or add to you to be better than who you are right now. You are 100% good enough. You are this unique crystal of a miracle that exists on this planet with 8 billion other crystals. And you're unique. And right now you're in your process of kind of understanding your superpowers and it's going to take a little bit of time. And the way that you understand more about your superpowers and what you're meant to do is non resistance. This is how all these distinctions start to tie together now while you're living your life realizing that your thoughts are not your thoughts, that they're just happening all the time and not having to follow your thoughts and realizing that you don't have to figure anything else out right now, that you can just enjoy what you're experiencing. It's a buffet of life and you get to try things out and you can't make any mistakes and you don't have to worry until your mid-40s about what you're going to do. So just put it off. If you get to your mid-40s and you don't really know what you want to do, then give me a call. And you're allowing yourself to desire and you're using the contrast or problems as they will show up in your life as catalysts for the desires that you have. And then you play the game of non resistance, meaning you know that through the power of creation and the thoughts that you'll have access to and the coincidences and synchronicities that will show up what you imagine will become your reality. The rest of the world is going to feel crazy around you. Feels crazy around me. I'm not sitting over here saying like, it doesn't feel nuts. I notice it. I'm like, wow, shit. Feels pretty cray cray out there in a lot of different ways. But the key is to ignore it. There was a story in Greek mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was this hero and Eurydice was his girlfriend. And Hades, who was the king of the underworld, found Eurydice very attractive. And so he took Eurydice and he pulled her into the underworld. So Orpheus, the champion that he is, went down into the underworld to get his girlfriend back. And he shows up and Hades has Eurydice. And Hades says, I'll make you a deal. You can take Eurydice back up to Earth to the upper world, and you can live with her for the rest of your life. I'll leave her alone. But on your way back up to the upper world, you cannot look behind you. She's going to follow you up, but you cannot look backwards. And if you look backwards, she'll stay with me forever. Deal? Orpheus says deal. How hard could that be? As Orpheus is headed on the path back up to the upper world, he hears Eurydice screaming. He hears monsters in the gnashing of teeth and all kinds of terrible noises. It sounds like Eurydice is being eaten alive and that she's dying. He's literally feet within getting to the top and out of Hades into the upper world. And he can't help it any longer because of the screams, the yells, the sounds. And he turns around and there's beautiful Eurydice right behind him. No monsters around her. It was all an illusion. But because he looked backwards, poof. Eurydice disappears and she has to stay with grumpy old Hades in the underworld for eternity. So the world is what I would Call an orphan reality or an orphan illusion. Sorry is an even better name. It's an orphan illusion. It is this monsters and gnashing and danger and scary and it's propagated through the media and social media and it all seems very, very real. But it is a distraction and an illusion. You are so powerful that regardless of the distraction around you, the chaos, the division, the arguments, the who's right, who's wrong, if you just don't make that matter, it will remain an illusion in your life and you will be untouchable. Whatever you focus on will become your reality. And that doesn't mean that monsters and phantoms and all kinds of other things aren't going to show up around you. Like I told you, my client's daughter is going through this conflict at school where someone is accusing her of something that she did, couldn't do. That's the Orphean illusion. And the best thing to do is just be calm, be grateful, be yourself, be peaceful, focus on your desires, take care of yourself, enjoy your life, understand that this is how reality works and let the illusion play out. Don't make it matter. This takes us to the ninth distinction. Which is behind every problem is a solution. And the way you get to the solution is not by trying to get through the problem. The way you get to the solution is by allowing the solution to pass. Sorry, the way I said that backwards. The way you get to the solution is by allowing the problem to pass. Okay. The way you get to the solution is by allowing the process behind every problem is a solution. Let the problem pass. The metaphor I would give you is when you're sick, you get a fever and there's nothing you can do to make the fever go faster. The fever is an indication of a soon to arrive solution called Healing and Health. So the fever which is the problem precedes the solution which is feeling well again. But you don't do anything to solve the fever in the same way you don't try to solve your problems. Now that doesn't mean that you won't have ideas that come from when you're in a powerful state of being.

Intuition, inspiration, things that you might take action on. But it's very different when you start to panic and try to solve a problem. Does that make sense? There are some things that are going to show up in the course of your life that are problems that seem like they can't be solved. There was a great author named Frank Kinslow. He wrote a book called When Nothing's Working. Try Doing Nothing because he understood these concepts. So when problems show up in your life that don't easily pass, stop messing with them, because they're a fever that is breaking in your life. And if you stop giving it attention, it will pass and the solution will naturally arrive. The tenth distinction is about fellowship. And you should, I would inspire you to have a desire. Remember, desire plus non resistance equals desired result. Another way to look at a desire is a decision. You should decide for healthy friendships. There's a power in decision, There's a power in desire. The decisions that you make about life start to shape the way you perceive life. There's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. It's the part of your brain that starts to notice a car that you bought everywhere on the road. It's like everybody else bought that car, but that's just because you started noticing it, because it became important to you. And so you have the ability to focus your attention almost like your brain is a goal achieving machine towards the things that you want based on the decisions you make. So if you decide that you're not good enough, that's all you're going to notice. If you decide for healthy friendships, you're going to start to notice people who, when you get into friendship with them, will be great friends. Your decisions are very, very powerful. They dictate types of thoughts and ideas you have. They dictate your perception of the world. And because everything is vibrational, when you make a decision and you start to think in anticipation of, for example, a great set of friends, it starts to broadcast that out. And those people who would be great friends with you receive certain ideas and hunches and you end up meeting them in the lunch line, you end up working with them in the same business. So you can decide how your life will be. And one of my encouragements is you decide for healthy friendships. Because everything that we're talking about here and having a powerful living experience is not a do it yourself project. It's to do it with other people. I would never have gotten to where I am, which is a place I very much like, if it weren't for other people. I don't know if you ever saw it was a three part Netflix series on the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he said, people say you were a self made man. And Arnold says, that's bs. There's no such thing as a self made man. If it weren't for all the people that gave me chances and all the friends who supported me, there would be no Arnold Schwarzenegger here today. If we know that fellowship is important, then we should just decide. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm going to have even more extraordinary relationships with even more amazing people doing wonderful things in the world. That's a very powerful decision. Back in 2016, I felt like I didn't have a lot of friends. I didn't have a very big quote, unquote network. And I made that decision. I wrote it in my journal. I said, I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm going to build even more extraordinary relationships with even more amazing people doing even more incredible things in the world. A couple of weeks later, I got invited to speak at my first event. It was a very small event, and at that event, I met another speaker, another influencer guy by the name of Garrett Gunderson, New York Times bestselling author and one of those guys who's just a man's man. He spoke before me, and I kind of fell in love with him. I got like a bromance, and we ended up developing this amazing relationship. And he's an incredible human being doing extraordinary things in the world. And through that, he's been a great partner helping me in my business. He's been a great friend personally. He was the best man in my wedding. And I can literally look back and see that it came from that decision that I made. So decide for healthy friendships, decide for healthy relationships with amazing people, and you'll start attracting them. I think we're on the 11th distinction here, is there are no mistakes. And so that's important to understand. You can't get it wrong. There's a beautiful corresponding aspect that we have with the intelligence of life. People call it the universe or source energy or God or Jesus or Allah. But basically, there's a system that's operating through us, it's operating around us, and it's always working for our greatest growth, our greatest benefit, our greatest prosperity, our greatest happiness, our greatest evolution. And it kind of goes back to that idea that maybe you've heard about called free will. Like, life lets us choose. And it's like a choose your own adventure book. We had those when I was a kid. It's like you'd read the first three pages and then it would say, if you choose the character to do this, go to page 72. And if you choose the character to do that, go to page 42. They were really, really cool books. But life is like a choose your own adventure. And the intelligence of life will work with whatever decision you make to guide you towards an extraordinary masterpiece. Life to guide you towards a destiny that you're not even aware of yet. Now, I'm not suggesting that you go do heroin and expect life to make something good out of it. I think you were still responsible for our decisions. But I'm talking about the 99% of decisions that you stress out about. It's like, think about it, and if there's one that you lean into more, go with it and don't regret it. Because life will turn that water into wine every single time. It'll make it better. And if you don't know which one to go with, then it doesn't really matter. Pick one and life will work with you. It's a choose your own adventure. And I look back on all the different decisions that I made and how much I worried about them, and it was all unnecessary. One of my mentors has created like a billion dollar empire helping a lot of people. And I asked him once, I said, man, how did you create so much? He said, one day I realized there was no such thing as a wrong decision. So I stopped being indecisive and worrying about the decisions that I was making and I started deciding much more quickly. And life kept responding. And so I was able to create at extraordinary speeds without the stress and the overwhelm. So just know you can't really make any mistakes. So chill out. I hope those 11 distinctions are helpful. It's a nice little recipe to come back to and probably worth listening to this episode a second time if you want to go deeper into it. Of course, I do have my book. You can get it for about 16 bucks on Amazon. It's called A Changed Mind if you resonate with anything that I've shared. Frankly, if you're still listening to this episode, I highly recommend it. Because, you know, you're somebody who is stepping up to the next level and you're looking for solutions and you're wanting to get out of your pain and there are ways to do that and it doesn't have to be difficult. I wish I knew all of this stuff when I was back in my early 20s, my mid-20s, even in my early 30s, life would have been a lot easier for me. And so I hope that this episode makes life a little easier for you. So if you've enjoyed this, you want to share it with somebody else, please do. If you're listening on the audio platforms and you want to subscribe, fantastic. Leave me a rating if you're listening on YouTube, you can do the same thing. Subscribe, comment, ask some questions, and like I said, got a lot of other episodes that go deeper on each of these 11 distinctions. Check it out again. This isn't a do it yourself project. I'm here with you. I understand it doesn't feel easy a lot of times and we're going to be able to do this together. So stay close. I love you very much and I'll see you in the next episode. Hey, it's David. One more thing. If you want to go even deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to www.DavidBaird.com. you can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times a week. I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free Mind Hack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technologies and the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands, thousands of people established a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site and I will see you in the next episode.